Ministerial Appointments: A Case For FCT Indigene

All eyes are now on President Bola Tinubu to  reveal his ministerial nominees. An act that would kick-start the engine of his administration and set the pulse of the nation while the Nigerian people react by either applauding or scrutinizing the cabinet appointments of the newly elected President.

Nigerians await with keen interest the personalities to be tapped from across the country to form the next Federal Executive Council (FEC). The emergence of ministers will enable the people gauge the intent and direction of Mr President towards tackling the myriad of development challenges facing the country.

During this waiting period, indigenous people of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja have a course to renew their perennial agitation to be considered for ministerial appointment. Just like other Nigerians, irrespective of where they may reside on the globe, are interested in the affairs of their ancestral home and constantly stay in tune with ongoing  developments in their states. Indigenes of the FCT likewise yearn for such representation, justice, equity and fairness within the Nigeria project.

Since the advent of the present democratic dispensation in 1999, indigenes of the FCT have been treated as second class citizens in the country. No president has considered it appropriate to appoint from the pool of brilliant personalities of the indigenes of the FCT as minister of the FCT fulfilling  the Constitutional right of representation in the Federal Executive Council. This is in disregard of the spirit of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (As Amended) which provides that the FCT be considered and treated as if it were equal to the other 36 states of the federation. 

Aside representation, ministerial appointment is a balancing act that guarantees sense of belonging to all the federating units of the country. Indigenous people of the FCT have been denied these two fundamental rights over the years. Out of the nine ethnic groups in the FCT, none has been regarded for appointment nor considered as having the rights to be represented. The opportunity to correct this anomaly soonest rather than later presently beckons on President Tinubu.

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The FCT is by no means bereft of indigenes politically and academically qualified to efficiently perform the duties of ministers of the Federal Republic. 

It is clear that the FCT is not lacking in indigenous persons that are fit for  ministerial appointment either for  the Federal Capital Territory or other ministerial positions. As a lover of justice and equity, I join my voice with many advocates of fairness, justice and equal representation to implore that the President does due diligence and take a look at the antecedents and precedents of influential persons in the territory as well as their heart for service before deciding who is best suited for the ministerial appointment.

The people of Abuja should not be reduced to a lost people in the wilderness of history. Where they come from is not lost on them. Sadly, for the indigenous people of the FCT, who have in their magnanimity and upon the promulgation of decree number 6 of 1976 gifted the nation its beautiful capital in Abuja. 

These beautiful people of Amwamwa, Bassa, Egbira, Gade, Ganagana, Gbagyi, Gbari, Gwandara and Koro ethnicity have not had a feel of what representation at the highest level of Nigeria’s political echelon feels like since 1999. 

This has left many of the indigenes in states of dejection and a feel of political marginalization.

The agitation has been long and futile. In 2019, Alhaji Hassan Usman Sokodabo, a House of Representatives member for Abuja South Federal Constituency in an interview stated that the agitation for an FCT minister is backed by the law and joined his voice in advocating that the then president, Muhammadu Buhari appointed an indigene as minister of FCT. This fell on deaf ears as the original inhabitants of the FCT were yet again denied the opportunity to be represented by one of their own.

In 2020, when the issue was raised in the Senate under the leadership of former Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, the Senate urged the executive to appoint a minister amongst indigenes of the FCT referencing the decision of the Court of Appeal, Abuja.

In 2021, an activist and Constitutional Lawyer, late Musa Baba-Panya, in advocating for the representation of natives of the FCT called on President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint an indigene of the FCT Abuja as a minister to correct the injustices of the past, when the former president was to reshuffle his cabinet in August 2019.

These are only but a few references out of the decades-long agitation for representation and political emancipation by the aboriginal people of the FCT.

A lot has been said to infer that the minister of the FCT must not be an indigene of the FCT and while that is true, it is also a matter of fact and absolute truth that the constitution did not state that the FCT minister cannot be an indigene of the FCT.

It is the hope of the FCT indigenous people that this much-talked about renewed hope is extended to them, to yet again hope and count on Mr President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make the unparalleled decision of giving the people the representation they have long desired and waited for. 

 – Yusuf writes from Abuja.